Archive for January, 2014

The technology, called Contour Crafting, is already here and can build a 2,500-square-foot home in 20 hours.

The massive robot printer was invented by University of Southern California professor Behrokh Khoshnevis, who says that the technology is so versatile that it can be used to build homes in slums or human habitats on Mars.

Khoshnevis also says NASA is supportive of using the technology to build lunar habitats, laboratories and roads on the Moon or Mars that could eventually house human life. He points out that construction is far behind manufacturing when it comes to automation.

“If you look around yourself, pretty much everything is made automatically today — your shoes, your clothes, home appliances, your car,” he said during a TED talk. “The only thing that is still built by hand are these buildings.”

Construction as we know it today is wasteful, costly and often over budget, he said. It is more dangerous for workers than mining and agriculture, resulting in 10,000 deaths a year, according to Khoshnevis. He says Contour Crafting offers construction with less waste, noise, dust or harmful emissions.

“They don’t have to look like tract houses because all you have to do is change a computer program,” he said during the TED talk. “The walls do not have to be linear. They can use any kind of curve. Therefore, you can really execute very exotic beautiful architectural features without incurring extra cost.”